What made you choose Templafy? 

I first encountered Templafy years ago at another organization, and what impressed me then (and still does now) is its strategic positioning: activating brand assets directly within the tools people use every day, particularly Microsoft Office. That integration philosophy aligned perfectly with how modern teams actually work.

At Hitachi, email signatures emerged as a clear opportunity for improvement. We had processes in place, and marketing would distribute updated templates periodically, but execution varied. It wasn’t a matter of people not caring about the brand; it was that the system required manual effort that competed with daily priorities. Inconsistency was the natural result.

I wanted a solution that would embed brand compliance into the workflow itself, eliminating friction rather than just adding rules. The goal was to make doing the right thing the easiest thing, while giving our teams access to professional-grade materials that truly reflected the quality of our business. 

How was the rollout and onboarding process? 

I invested several months upfront in strategic preparation: building templates, creating an intuitive taxonomy, and thinking through how different roles would interact with the system. This foundation work was critical. I wanted to ensure that when we launched, people would immediately understand the value proposition and trust the platform as their primary resource.

The IT approval process gave me valuable time to refine the structure. By launch day, everything was positioned strategically, and the benefits were immediately visible. The reception was so positive that I naturally became an internal advocate for the platform.

What surprised me most was the interest from other divisions. Colleagues from Hitachi Rail reached out to learn about our approach, and I was happy to share our onboarding materials and implementation experience. That cross-divisional interest validated that we’d solved a challenge many teams face as they scale.

How is daily work different now? 

The transformation is substantial. We’ve moved from reactive brand management to proactive enablement. Instead of colleagues coming to marketing saying, “I can’t locate this asset” or “Where should I look for that resource,” we can simply direct them to Templafy. But more importantly, they’re increasingly discovering materials independently, which was always the goal.

There’s a new level of confidence across the organization. When employees create documents, presentations, or communications, they know they’re working with current, approved materials that reflect our brand standards. This confidence translates into higher quality output. When we collaborate on presentations, everyone is aligned from the start and working from the same strategic foundation.

The efficiency gains are quantifiable. In just the past year, we’ve documented approximately 2,010 working hours saved (equivalent to 268 working days) simply through more streamlined document workflows. But beyond time savings, we’ve elevated the consistency and professionalism of every customer-facing touchpoint.

What kind of feedback have you received since rollout? 

The response has been overwhelmingly positive. People genuinely appreciate having a single, reliable source for brand materials rather than navigating multiple repositories. It’s transformed a previously fragmented experience into something seamless.

The adoption metrics tell a compelling story: today, 87% of all documents created at HCME come through Templafy. We’re talking about approximately 13,331 documents so far. For me as brand steward, this means we’ve dramatically increased the percentage of materials that meet our brand standards—not through enforcement, but through enablement. That’s exactly the outcome we envisioned.